by SM Reine
The glow of a lighter splashed over David Nicholas’s skeletal face. He touched the flame to the tip of his cigarette, inhaling deeply, making the tobacco glow crimson.
I groaned and kicked my feet against the ground, pushing myself toward the opposite corner—the one he wasn’t standing in. David Nicholas tucked the lighter away and blew smoke out his nostrils, unimpressed by my pathetic attempts to escape.
“Look at what we have here.” He sauntered over to Fritz and planted a booted foot on his chest. “Great Grandbaby Friederling with bungee cords around his ankles and… Are you wearing a suit and tie? A Friederling in a suit and tie!” Apparently this was hilarious, even though I’d never seen my boss wearing anything else. The nightmare’s laughter was more like coughing.
“Get your foot off of me,” croaked Fritz.
“Oh, I don’t think so.” David Nicholas knelt, pressing more weight on his chest. “This is sweet. Just too damn sweet. Let me treasure this moment.”
“What do you want?” I asked. I was kind of shocked to be able to speak. David Nicholas didn’t seem to have brought his thrall with him.
“I want what Cain has, and what you buggers have,” David Nicholas said. “The Night Hag is waking up because she wants the ethereal ruins, and I aim to give them to her.”
“You and this Night Hag are going to have to get in line,” I said. “Everybody wants them.”
“That’s because there’s power in those rocks. Lots of it. More than you’d know what to do with. We, on the other hand, know how to make the ruins work for us. Keep us safe. Understand?”
“Nope.”
David Nicholas’s eyes glinted with annoyance. “The Reno-Sacramento territory’s safe from remote viewing because of the ethereal ruins. And as long as the Night Hag possesses them, it’ll be easy to drive away competitors.”
“That’s nice,” I said. “Too bad the Night Hag doesn’t possess them anymore. Guess you should have moved faster to kill Cain.”
He sucked hard on the cigarette. Blew out more smoke. “It’s not too late yet.”
The first glimmer of hope stirred in my heart. Weird reaction to being in the room with a nightmare.
“You’re going to kill Cain?” I asked.
David Nicholas reached over to me and plucked the BlackBerry out of my pocket before I could react. “Depends on you,” he said. “We’re going to steal the ruins from Cain and whatever’s left in the Silverton Mines. That’s not a problem. But there’s still a piece missing—a piece you assholes took out of town.” The piece that was currently being studied in Los Angeles. “Bring it back to me, then fuck off. In return, I’ll let both of you escape this cave. Fair?”
As far as I knew, the OPA had never been interested in the ruins. We had just come to Reno to investigate that stupid surge in infernal energy. And now we knew what it was: a rising overlord named the Night Hag who wanted the ethereal ruins. Mission accomplished.
“The last piece is all yours,” I said. “We don’t want it. Now let us out of here.”
Fritz groaned softly. Luckily, the pain was too much for him to try to argue with me.
David Nicholas held the BlackBerry out. “I need the last fragment to be brought from Los Angeles first,” he said softly, dangerously. “Make the call.”
“My wrists,” I said.
A blade glinted in the light. David Nicholas sliced smoothly through the ropes and freed me. My shoulders ached at the change in position as I took the phone from him.
“Don’t,” Fritz moaned. “My phone—”
“I already spoke to the VP,” I said. “It can’t get any worse.”
I dialed for the Los Angeles office.
David Nicholas watched hungrily as my call was quickly escalated to the lab analyzing the ethereal ruins. Since I was on an executive line, nobody argued with me when I told them to bring the evidence back to Reno. I ordered them to deliver it to Craven’s front door. Dispatch confirmed that it would be there within two hours.
Easy.
Once I hung up, David Nicholas stood. He tossed the switchblade at my feet. “Lovely doing business with you.”
He flashed out the door to attack Cain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LIKE MOST BLUE-BLOODED American children lucky enough to have a piggy bank and too much free time, I used to be a big fan of comic books. My favorite ones were always those where two superheroes’ books crossed over and they met for the first time. The stories were awesome and the covers were awesomer.
If you’re not familiar with comic books, you might think that two good guys getting together would mean working hard to achieve the same goal. Right?
Nope.
Spider-Man meets Wolverine always ended up as Spider-Man versus Wolverine, because you don’t care how well superheroes work together. That shit’s boring.
You want to know who would kick the most ass in a head-on fight. You want to know which big and nasty is the biggest and nastiest.
Are Spider-Man’s web shooters and agility enough against Wolverine’s adamantium claws? Can Wolverine slice and dice an acrobatic teenage nerd he can’t even catch?
That kind of thing.
I didn’t get much time for comic books anymore. I’ve got a pull list at the shop on the corner, but I don’t get to spend hours arguing with Domingo over who should have won the fight. (Spider-Man, for the record.) I spend way too much time dealing with real superheroes at work to have time to obsess over fictional superheroes.
But tonight, work had served up that kind of entertainment on a platter, conveniently allowing me to enjoy my vicarious thrills while on the clock. I had front-row seats to big and ugly versus bigger and uglier.
Nightmare against werewolf.
Who would win?
Judging by the guttural screams that shattered the air outside the cave, it was a close fight.
“Come on, come on,” I muttered, hacking at the bungee cords holding Fritz’s wrists together. The knots were too tight for me to work with my fingernails.
“Leave me,” Fritz said. He was so quiet that I could barely hear him under the screaming. “Don’t untie me. If I change, I could kill you.”
“Don’t be a fucking martyr,” I said. Besides, if he changed into a werewolf, the bungee cords weren’t going to keep him from eating me anyway.
There. I finally hacked through the cables and freed his arms. His feet came a little easier.
Pulling Fritz’s arm over my shoulders, I carried him outside the cave.
Cain was in a bad place. He was knee-deep in the lake, thrashing and beating at nothingness, screaming like he was wounded—even though I couldn’t see a mark on his body. I couldn’t see David Nicholas, either.
The moon had traveled most of the way across the sky, full and heavy, and it cast stark shadows over Cain’s fight. When had the moon gotten that close to the mountains? I must have been unconscious a lot longer than I thought.
My heart sank at the realization.
Was it already too late for Fritz to call Lucrezia?
My boss sagged against me, stumbling, making me stagger under his weight. The blood was still pouring freely from his shoulder. His eyes were glazed. I was going to have to toss him over my back and carry him through the icy waters of Lake Tahoe. But if I didn’t make it to the other shore before he started shapeshifting, I was going to get caught in the surf with a werewolf transforming on my back.
The call couldn’t wait that long.
I sank to my knees, propping him against the wall. I pushed the BlackBerry into his hands. “Fritz, you have to call Lucrezia de Angelis,” I said in a low, urgent voice, hoping he could hear me over Cain’s roaring.
His head lolled. “Werewolf…”
“Yeah, right, you have to call her before you change. She’s going to kill both of us if you don’t.”
Fritz’s fingers closed around the BlackBerry. His thumb moved weakly, trying to dial.
Cain finally realized that we had escaped. He
ripped away from David Nicholas, lunging for us. I jumped out of the way just in time. He hurtled past me and slammed into the wall with a snarl. When Cain whirled to face us again, I realized that the bones in his face were popping and shifting. Fritz wasn’t the only wolf-to-be I had to worry about.
Shadows swirled like smoke and David Nicholas appeared. His eyes glimmered with amusement—and worry. “Don’t let him change into a werewolf,” he said. “My powers don’t work on dogs. Won’t be able to do much about him after that.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to keep him from changing?” I asked.
“Silver,” David Nicholas said.
I did have silver rounds loaded in my gun. But I’d given it to Suzy.
“You were supposed to be able to stop him! We had a deal!” I snapped, jumping out of the way as Cain’s writhing form stumbled at me again.
“Oops,” David Nicholas said. “Sorry about that.”
The nightmare exploded into smoke and converged on Cain, tangling in his fur. It must have hurt. The half-wolf threw his head back to howl his fury into the night. David Nicholas seized on his open jaw and slithered down his throat.
Cain’s howl cut off. He choked and gagged, seizing on the beach.
Fritz waved me down. “Take these,” he said, holding out a pair of handcuffs. They looked shinier than a normal pair of cuffs. Laced with silver?
I snatched them out of his hands. “Make the phone call, Fritz!”
There was no time to babysit my boss. Cain and David Nicholas were still struggling. The werewolf was trying to change. And if he got all the way into his animal form, then nobody was going to be able to stop him—not the nightmare, and definitely not me.
Sucking in a deep, steadying breath, I threw myself on top of them.
It was even worse than trying to ride a daimarachnid.
Cain was so much bigger, so much stronger, and he was still shapeshifting underneath me. David Nicholas’s stranglehold on him seemed to be slowing the process, but not enough. I could feel bones rippling between my legs.
“Hold his jaws!” I ordered, feeling kind of stupid for issuing orders to the inky shadow.
The inky shadow listened. He coalesced on Cain’s face and enveloped his jaw.
The werewolf’s head slammed into my arm. He couldn’t open his mouth to bite. Thank God. If the nightmare had been a half-second slower, Fritz wouldn’t be the only one communing with the full moon.
I managed to clamp the handcuffs on one of Cain’s shapeshifting wrists. Flesh sizzled at the contact. I felt the howl inside his furry chest, muffled by David Nicholas’s makeshift shadow-muzzle.
Yep, definitely silver-laced handcuffs.
Summoning my many years of experience in wrestling my brother, I hooked my arm around Cain’s throat, flipped him underneath me, and clasped the other cuff around his free wrist.
He screamed and struggled, but he wasn’t going anywhere now. The werewolf was contained.
David Nicholas evaporated from Cain’s fur and reappeared a few feet away in his human form. He looked even more skeletal than he had earlier. Fighting the werewolf had drained him of strength and energy. “There,” he said, and he punctuated the word with a swift kick in the werewolf’s ribs.
I turned to face Fritz, a grin growing on my face. “We did it! We stopped the—” My eyes fell on my boss, and I cut off.
Fritz was slumped on the beach. Unconscious. The BlackBerry a few inches from his slack hand.
He didn’t make the call.
The sound of thumping helicopter rotors made me look up. A black Union copter was descending on a hill a couple hundred yards to the south, and it wasn’t the helicopter we had been using. This one looked meaner, more military, with rockets clutched to its underbelly.
Judging by the red lasers suddenly swarming over the beach, this copter was carrying snipers.
Fritz hadn’t called in time. Lucrezia had sent men to clean us up.
I stared around at the beach, realizing what the men would see. They weren’t going to see that I had just narrowly rescued Fritz from a werewolf. They were going to see Director Friederling bleeding—possibly dead—on the beach while I crouched over a struggling werewolf with a nightmare at my side.
If that didn’t look like a serious loss, I didn’t know what would.
I mentioned the OPA was ruthlessly efficient, right? And how awesome I thought that was? I take it back.
I waved my arms over my head and shouted, knowing it was already too late. “Don’t shoot! It’s under control!”
A bullet buzzed past my ear. I heard plastic explode.
They had shot the BlackBerry just a few inches from Fritz’s limp fingers.
I jumped behind the cover of rocks, pulling my legs against my chest so there would be nothing to hit. More bullets whizzed past. Cracked into the rocks. They were like a tiny, deadly fireworks show right next to my head.
My heart hammered in my chest. I pressed the button on my earpiece and spoke as soon as I heard the line go live, uncaring of who might be on the other side.
“Fritz is alive! I repeat, Director Friederling is alive! Tell the vice president to call off the men!”
That soothing female voice responded. “Please hold.”
“Please hold? Please hold? I’m being shot at by my own fucking allies!”
But the gunfire had stopped—for the moment. I kept my back braced to the rocks. Didn’t dare look around the side to see what they were doing. Could have been reloading, could have been moving in to get a better shot, could have been called off. No way to tell.
I smelled tobacco and looked up to see David Nicholas leaning against the rocks next to me, sheltered from the view of the Union. He sucked on his cigarette. “It would have been fun to watch them kill you,” he said. “Shame.”
He flicked the cigarette to the ground and lunged at me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I WOKE UP WITH a jolt in the penthouse. Hazy sunlight stabbed my eyes. I flung up a hand to shelter myself from the burn.
What am I doing here?
Shoving the sheets to my knees and patting down my body, I found no wounds. I thought that I’d chafed my wrists when twisting at Cain’s bindings, but I was healed now. There was no indication of the fight at Lake Tahoe anywhere on my flesh.
“Suzy?” I called, kicking the sheets off.
It was quiet in the penthouse. It sounded like I was alone.
I got out of bed. Drifted to the door. Pushed it open.
The living room on the other side was empty. Good thing, too, because I was wearing my boxers. Not the most professional presentation.
Last time I’d been here, Gary Zettel and Malcolm had turned our penthouse into a Union outpost. There had been men in black everywhere. A giant circle of power in the den. Guns and surveillance equipment and maps of the region.
Now it looked the same way it had right before David Nicholas attacked, including the stockpot on the stove.
“You’ve forgotten something.”
I turned at the sound of the voice. There was nobody behind me.
More than that, there was nothing behind me—not the living room, nor the windows overlooking the city, nor the view of the mountains beyond. There was only impenetrable, endless blackness.
I definitely had forgotten something. Fear swelled in my gut, squeezed against my lungs.
That voice drifted around me again. “Connie killed herself for a reason, Agent Hawke. Talking about the Night Hag where the spiders can hear you—knowing what the Night Hag wants—that’s fatal knowledge.”
“But I know what she wants, and I’m still alive,” I said.
“I know. Unlucky for you, she knows, too.”
The words echoed.
She knows, she knows, she knows…
There was no ground beneath my feet and no oxygen in my lungs. I spiraled down into darkness. Sank deep into the fear.
I had been caught in David Nicholas’s thrall.
The instant I realized it, I struggled against the weight of his compulsion, moving my legs, trying to get the blood flowing. Trying to escape the way that Malcolm had taught me.
Even though I couldn’t see, I could feel carpet under my bare feet. I focused on that instead of the crush of terror and the sluggish beat of my heart. If I dwelled on that for too long, I was going to lose my composure and my sanity.
That knowledge is fatal, Agent Hawke…
David Nicholas’s voice was inside me now. He wasn’t speaking aloud anymore.
He was in my goddamn head.
“We had a deal,” I said, pressing my hands to my ears, knowing I couldn’t force the nightmare out of my skull. It was too late. He had drilled down into my brain. “I released the ethereal artifact to you, and you were going to spare our lives.”
I said that I’d let you out of the cave. I didn’t say I wouldn’t kill you later. And this, Agent Hawke, is something you must die for…
What a fucking asshole.
My hands slammed into something solid—a wall. I wedged my foot against the baseboard to give myself a sense of the planes of reality. It made me feel more secure, more real, to have something to grip.
I slid along the wall inch by inch.
David Nicholas’s fear grew, gathering at the nape of my neck, squeezing hard on my spinal column.
He was behind me. He was approaching. Needed to escape before he reached me.
I moved faster, but it was like struggling through the icy waters of Lake Tahoe again. I was sluggish. Freezing. Numbing from the outside in. I could feel the chill climbing my knees and hips and chest and I knew it was just David Nicholas’s thrall, I knew I was imagining every bit of it, but I still panicked at the idea that I was about to drown.
Where was I? The carpet seemed wrong for the penthouse. It looked like it belonged back home in my shitty one-bedroom Los Angeles apartment.
Wait. I was in my apartment.
I could see the hallway around me now. It was nighttime-dark, but not unnaturally so. My bedroom was behind me. Living room to the right. The bathroom door was closed a few feet ahead.
